Lynn, Crosby among area counties to receive state funding; old Lubbock federal building project could receive tax credit

Lubbock County commissioners have accepted an offer to buy the original federal courthouse and post office at 800 Broadway, shown here and in the photos at top. The Texas Historical Commission plans to encourage the prospective buyers to consider federal funding for renovations.

The Lubbock County Commission retained the services of WestMark Realtors to sell the original courthouse and post office at 800 Broadway. (Zach Long/A-J Media)The old Lubbock Post Office and Federal Building is a handful of area courthouses set for renovations. (Zach Long/A-J Media)

Lubbock County commissioners have accepted an offer to buy the original federal courthouse and post office at 800 Broadway. The Texas Historical Commission plans to encourage the prospective buyers to consider federal funding for renovations.

Lubbock County commissioners have accepted an offer to buy the original federal courthouse and post office at 800 Broadway. The Texas Historical Commission plans to encourage the prospective buyers to consider federal funding for renovations.

Restoration projects at historical South Plains courthouses could receive a financial boost from the state and federal government — if the money is there and the counties want it.

Several South Plains counties have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding from a 14-year-old Texas Historical Commission program that helps counties with courthouses 50 years old and older create renovation plans and implement them through construction.

While federal grant dollars are available for such potential renovation projects as Lubbock’s old federal courthouse, state funds have dried up in recent years as legislators tighten the state’s budget, and a state program that had a budget of more than $60 million for the 2007-08 fiscal year is now set to receive $4.2 million.

“We will be assisting counties only with their critical needs and not accepting the rehabilitation projects that we had been seeing,” said Sharon Fleming, division director for the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation program.

The program has awarded more than $230 million to courthouse restoration projects in more than 80 of the state’s 254 counties since the program was created in 1999, she said.

That leaves projects like Lynn County’s more than three-year effort to renovate its 97-year-old courthouse on the waiting list.

Lynn County Judge H.G. Franklin said his county is sitting on plans to renovate its courthouse, funded by a $400,000 planning grant.

Fleming said Lynn County submitted a grant proposal in 2011 for a $5 million project to renovate the structure, including new plumbing, wiring and reopening an upper-level seating area in the courtroom.

But limited funding and competition from other projects kept Lynn County on the waiting list.

“Essentially, they would be the next project to be funded in a typical grant cycle,” she said, hopeful courthouse preservation projects will receive more funding in the future.

Franklin said his county plans to resubmit its request for the 2013-14 grant cycle this fall.

“We don’t know where we’re going,” he said. “Until then we’re really not going to know.”

The promise of “free money” isn’t always enticing enough to overcome the possible catches or rules and regulations attached with government grants, said Crosby County Judge David Wigley.

Wigley, whose county received a $200,000 grant in 2000 for development of detailed construction plans and specifications, said his county received architects’ plans for renovations but opted not to pursue receiving additional funding for construction.

Wigley, who was not in office at the time, said county leaders did not like some of the requirements that went along with receiving grant funding for the project, including replacing modern aluminum-framed windows with wood-framed windows to restore the structure to its original look circa 1912.

Crosby County also needed to remove the dropped ceilings it installed to increase energy efficiency and restore a courtroom balcony.

“There were just too many rules and regulations and we opted not to pursue it,” Wigley said. “We’re in pretty doggone good shape at our courthouse and we’re taking care of problems on our own as they come up.”

Of 21 South Plains counties eligible to participate in the historical commission program, only five — Crosby, Lynn, Bailey, Dickens and Garza — have pursued funding of any sort.

Wigley said he’s not surprised so few counties have applied and that his hasn’t pursued it further.

“We’re a pretty independent group up here in Northwest Texas,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, there are times when we think state grants can be a godsend, and then there are times when we independent folks look at it in the opposite end of the spectrum.”

Federal building

Meanwhile, the historical commission plans to encourage the prospective buyers of Lubbock’s old federal courthouse and post office to consider federal funding as the buyers contemplate renovating the nearly 81-year-old structure in downtown Lubbock, Fleming said.

Lubbock County is in talks with a potential buyer to purchase the city’s original federal courthouse, 800 Broadway, and a vacant downtown lot where a brothel once stood.

Commissioners last month accepted an offer on the properties less than a month after the county listed them for $500,000 through WestMark Realtors, Neal Burt, civil division chief in the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, said at the time.

Burt said the pending deal could take several months to complete as the buyer inspects the building and finalizes the purchase.

He said he expects the potential buyer plans to “repurpose” the building, though he did not know details.

The stone and brick building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and has been the subject of several private purchase inquiries, which led to the decision to find a real estate firm, Lubbock County Commissioner Bill McCay told the Avalanche-Journal last month.

Lubbock County re-roofed the courthouse in a red Spanish-style tile after Preservation Texas selected it in 2011 for the state’s endangered buildings list because of concerns the leaking roof was damaging paintings and the third-floor courtroom.

The three-story building, built in 1932, was both a federal courthouse and downtown post office until 1968, according to the real estate listing.

The federal government then deeded the property to Lubbock County, which used the building for records storage until 1998. It has been vacant since then.

Fleming said the project is an ideal candidate for funding through the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit program, which the historical commission coordinates in Texas.

She said the commission has been working with the prospective buyer — a group of Lubbock investors — but was unsure if the group is considering the tax credit, which would cover 20 percent of renovation costs.

Karen Higgins, a Realtor with WestMark working with the buyers, declined to comment about the potential for federal assistance in renovating the building or name the prospective buyer.

She did release a statement from James Estes, who represents the buyers:

“As an architectural landmark in downtown Lubbock, 800 Broadway represents an opportunity for a renovation project that can become another cornerstone in the rebuilding and repurposing of the downtown area,” the statement reads. “Many years vacant and deteriorating, this building has a multitude of functional issues to resolve to become a vibrant business center. Our investment group is currently engaged in due diligence with local consultants and contractors to resolve these issues, and provide a project that is historically sensitive and functional. Further comment on these issues at this time would be premature.”

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for
following agreed-upon rules of civility. Posts and
comments do not reflect the views of this site. Posts and comments are
automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some
comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules,
click the "Flag as offensive" link below the comment.

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx